One of the most noteworthy and fascinating scenes in Hour of the Dragon, is the one where Conan liberates the black slaves from the slave-vessel near the port of Messantia. The slaves in question having once been though he doesn’t realize it at first, the very crew that he worked with as a pirate years prior.
Upon realizing that it is in fact his crew, Conan reacts with even more rage than before, as his paternal instincts kick and he fumes that those he had left behind in another life had been treated so callously.
The reason for this is easily explained, as Conan the Cimmerian is a man whom attaches a great deal of importance to his bond with others, especially those whom he’s fought alongside as death and blood do tend to unite men. In the case of the men that had apparently clung to the sea, as the ship seems to have been Conan’s also, with this likely also stoking the flames of his fury. Likely because they are men of the sea, and also out of fondness for Conan, whom they know as Amra the Lion.
Amra is an interesting name that means ‘Lion’ and that Conan took up in his youth, when he used to raid a great deal of the known world. Even more infamous than even Belit the Queen of the Black Coast, he had forged tight bonds with his crew who seem to worship him as might a younger sibling or child their elder brother or father.
‘Amra! Amra!’ chanted the delirious blacks those who were left to chant. ‘The Lion has returned! Now will the Stygians howl like dogs in the night, and the black dogs of Kush will howl!’
They go on to say much more, but the desire for conquest, and celebratory feelings only grow from there, with the blacks hardly mourning for lost time or feeling resentful of the time he has spent apart from them. This speaks to the strength of the bond between them and Conan.
Where Belit had sought to project herself as a goddess to them, dominate them and otherwise treated them as slaves never regarding them as human beings as she threw their lives away like one might rolled up paper, Conan values them, loves them and regards their every life as sacred. Refusing to take them with him into Stygia, for fear of risking their lives he leaves them to man the ship with orders to abandon him if he takes too long.
This isn’t the only quote worth mentioning from the novel that bespeaks to a bond between them. There is also that just before he liberates them, shortly after he starts a fight aboard the ship.
‘Who am I?’ he asks furiously.
This query is directed towards the blacks who soon recognize him and begin to chant the name Amra.
Amra if you will recall was the friend of Kull in the first Exile of Atlantis story Howard wrote. This story was brief and hardly all that fleshed out, though it did give an excellent backstory to Kull, with his friend Amra being a much more naïve if idealistic character.
Amra here is different, the name means Lion which is interesting as a lion is often in the Bible associated with Christ as any reader of Narnia will tell you. Howard could not have been ignorant of this connotation, and what is more is that the lion is widely considered the ‘King of the Jungle’, with this being a triple nod. There’s of course the kingly reference, there’s the nod to the story of Kull and there is also the nod to Christ, the Returning King in the Bible.
From this quote one can see the righteous indignation he feels, but also his call for his men to rise to the occasion.
Conan you see was never a tyrannical individual, who led through fear, but rather through loyalty and compassion so that he inspired not fear but love, and with his calling his men to action, to fight and earn their own freedom he does something few liberators ever do in fiction; he calls for them to have the satisfaction of avenging their honour, and having the satisfaction of having earned their liberty.
This is important, because not only do they get to live with the knowledge that they freed themselves and thus do not have to worry about seeking to justify their liberty to anyone, because they have reclaimed it themselves which is of infinite importance in some ways for us men. As slavery is repugnant to any man who draws breath, even as liberty is of the utmost importance to us.
It is upon this rock that the next part of the story is built, the battle in the pyramid. Within said pyramid Conan is confronted by the darkness of Stygia and in particular that of Akivasha, the ravishing and dangerous vampire.
The pyramid and darkness therein is as much a thematic one that Conan sinks to, just as his ship-crew sunk pretty low during their slavery.
It’s important to draw comparisons between the two incidences, and to point out that Conan’s call for the blacks to liberate themselves is also an important moment for Howard.
The reason the two scenes are inextricably linked is due to Stygia’s penchant for relying on slavery. What is more is that Conan is very nearly forced into slavery several times, most notably by Akivasha. Though she certainly desired a mate, it was not so that he might rule beside her on equal footing but as her lesser.
What is more is that Conan is forced to play at first being a fisherman/serf, then from there he pretends to be a priest within the pyramid.
He is not being true to himself, which is to say true to the spirit of liberty which he represents. And it is because he is the spirit of freedom that the blacks revere him as they do; they longed so very long for freedom that to them there are none more glorious than Conan at that moment.
Rooted into his consciousness is not some racist ideals as academics have lied about and falsely claimed, but from this scene we can determine a strong affection and appreciation for blacks. There is also a deeply rooted belief in the liberation of all others, so that likely in this moment Howard did project a little bit of a power-fantasy of sorts into Conan.
The scene is deeply pathological and speaks to some deep rooted part within Howard’s psyche, a desire to elevate others as he himself was elevated in some ways. It is proof of Howard’s generosity and goodness, as much as it is of Conan’s.
The gratitude and love shown by those he has helped to liberate speaks also to the bonds Conan forms, those of brotherhood. He is not simply on a lonely quest to help save the woman he loves and the Kingdom he has come to adore, but is on one in which others risk their own lives, sacrifices themselves and fight right alongside him.
Certainly Conan is the greatest of the heroes in the war, but in no way could he have accomplished what he did if he did not rescue and inspire his former crew.
The message of hope and brotherhood could not be clearer, and those themes along with that of self-liberation when laid low, can also be found in a derivative of the Hour of the Dragon novel.
The themes of liberation and hope also come up in the Kull the Conqueror movie which is derived from the Hour of the Dragon. Though, in there the theme of slavery is extended to more than black-galley slaves, but to a whole host of men and women. Kull in the movie, inspires his former crew just as Conan does, but he does the same for those within the capital of Valusia. It is in the palace where he first seeks to outlaw slavery, to not only undo this wicked practice but also to give them hope for a better tomorrow.
It was the view of Kull that Valusia might best profit by the liberation of her slaves and this would as in the case of latter-day Rome strengthen herself as a nation and draw upon a greater number of peoples if she was to rid herself of slavery as a practice for military, and national works to the benefit of the whole of the nation.
The aims are very different, but both men Conan and Kull in these different stories wish to aid others, and rely upon them to help in the rescue of Aquilonia and Valusia respectively.
This politics of hope and friendship, the two embody especially in the galley-slave scenes can be markedly contrasted with the politics and behaviours of the likes of Xaltotun in Hour of the Dragon, and Akivasha and Taligaro from the Kull the Conqueror story.
Xaltotun seeks to make slaves of the upper classes of Nemedia, before he disposes of them and the whole of the people of Nemedia, in order to replace them with the ancient Empire of Acheron, which he once headed. This is sorta’ve the goal of Akivasha in the movie but she mostly wishes to unleash demons upon the earth, in contrast to Xaltotun’s much grander, and much more nightmarish goal.
The main modus operandi of Xaltotun is to crush the spirit of his servants, inspiring despair and exhaustion in them. This is evidently an attempt to keep them from thinking for themselves, even as he wishes to deny them all that they might wish for.
In this way the despair as represented by Xaltotun, and to a lesser extent by the likes of Akivasha in the novel and the slave-captain, is contrasted by Conan.
This marked contrast between hero and villain, and the evident grief that the crew feels when Conan leaves the ship, and their relief to see him return can be contrasted with the dread Xaltotun’s slaves feel at the sight of him.
